Govt seeking cooperation from Blackberry maker: Pilot

Government was seeking cooperation from Blackberry maker as its services had implications for the country's internal security, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said today.

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PTI

New Delhi

August 14, 2010

UPDATED: August 14, 2010 17:34 IST

Government was seeking cooperation from Blackberry maker as its services had implications for the country's internal security, Minister of State for Communications and IT Sachin Pilot said on Saturday.

He said the government has to take certain measures if a technology had implications for internal security of the country, and the issue Blackberry services was one of them.

"We don't want any situation where a technology can harm our internal security. For these reasons, the Home Ministry keeps considering a wide range of issues from time to time," he said.

"It is not an issue of imposing a ban, what we want is cooperation from them for the sake of security issues," Pilot told reporters on the sidelines of a function in New Delhi.

The Government has set an August 31 deadline for Canada-based Blackberry maker Research in Motion (RIM) and telecom operators to address its security concerns, warning that failure to do so would result in some of the mobile phone's popular services being shut down in the country.

The smartphone maker has proposed certain ways to address India's security concerns over BlackBerry Enterprise Services (BES) and BlackBerry Messenger Services (BBM) for which it is seeking access in the country.

The Centre wants RIM to make available lawful interception of BES and BBM to security agencies.

Asked to comment on the issue of pesky calls by marketing agents, Pilot said they had become a "nuisance" and needed to be dealt with strongly.

"Along with service providers, marketing services and regulators, there is a need to make stringent laws on the subject and I believe very soon some steps will be taken. TRAI has even held a meeting and discussed the issue with all stakeholders. We want steps to be taken to stop this," he said.

"There are 65 crore telecom users in the country and these SMSes and calls are an invasion of privacy and I believe a holistic view should to taken and strong steps initiated to address this," he added.

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